Rigid on paper - Newspaper - DAWN.COM
SOME constitutions die by coup. Others are buried quietly, clause by clause, beneath the respectable cover of parliamentary arithmetic. Pakistan’s Constitution is, we are told, rigid. Article 239 demands that any amendment be passed by a two-thirds majority of the total membership of each House of Parliament. Where provincial boundaries are touched, the relevant assembly must agree by the same margin. This is supposed to be the great lock on the constitutional door — protection against temporary passions, executive overreach, and rulers who cannot resist rewriting the rules of the game. And yet, here we are again. The 1973 Constitution has been amended 27 times. That number alone is not the problem. Constitutions are not museum pieces; they must breathe and respond to history. But there is a difference between amendment and renovation — and what Pakistan has often practised is closer to the latter, dressed up as the former. The real question is whether entrenchment means anything when
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